This discussion focuses on Libya since the 18th century. For a treatment of earlier periods and of the country in its regional context, see North Africa.

Largely desert with some limited potential for urban and sedentary life in the northwest and northeast, Libya has historically never been heavily populated or a power centre. Like that of its neighbour Algeria, Libya’s very name is a neologism, created by the conquering Italians early in the 20th century. Also like that of Algeria, much of Libya’s earlier history—not only in the Islamic period but even before—reveals that both Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were more closely linked with neighbouring territories Tunisia and Egypt, respectively, than with each other. Even during the Ottoman era, the country was divided into two parts, one linked to Tripoli in the west and the other to Banghāzī in the east.

Libya thus owes its present unity as a state less to earlier history or geographic characteristics than to several recent factors: the unifying effect of the Sanūsiyyah movement since the 19th century; Italian colonialism from 1911 until after World War II; an early independence by default, since the great powers could agree on no other solution; and the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in the late 1950s. Yet the Sanūsiyyah is based largely in the eastern region of Cyrenaica and has never really penetrated the more populous northwestern region of Tripolitania. Italian colonization was brief and brutal. Moreover, most of the hard-earned gains in infrastructure implanted in the colonial period were destroyed by contending armies during World War II. Sudden oil wealth has been both a boon and a curse as changes to the political and social fabric, as well as to the economy, have accelerated. This difficult legacy of disparate elements and forces helps to explain the unique character of present-day Libya.

Ottoman rule

Part of the Ottoman Empire from the early 16th century, Libya experienced autonomous rule (analogous to that in Ottoman Algeria and Tunisia) under the Karamanli dynasty from 1711 to 1835. In the latter year the Ottomans took advantage of a succession dispute and local disorder to reestablish direct administration. For the next 77 years the area was administered by officials from the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) and shared in the limited modernization common to the rest of the empire. In Libya the most significant event of the period was the foundation in 1837 of the Sanūsiyyah, an Islamic order, or fraternity, that preached a puritanical form of Islam, giving the people instruction and material assistance and so creating among them a sense of unity. The first Sanūsī zāwiyah (monastic complex) in Libya was established in 1843 near the ruins of Cyrene in eastern Cyrenaica. The order spread principally in that province but also found adherents in the south. The Grand al-Sanūsī, as the founder came to be called, moved his headquarters to the oasis of Al-Jaghbūb near the Egyptian frontier, and in 1895 his son and successor, Sīdī Muḥammad Idrīs al-Mahdī, transferred it farther south into the Sahara to the oasis group of Al-Kufrah. Though the Ottomans welcomed the order’s opposition to the spread of French influence northward from Chad and Tibesti, they regarded with suspicion the political influence it exerted within Cyrenaica. In 1908 the Young Turk revolution gave a new impulse to reform; in 1911, however, the Italians, who had banking and other interests in the country, launched an invasion.

The Ottomans sued for peace in 1912, but Italy found it more difficult to subdue the local population. Resistance to the Italian occupation continued throughout World War I. After the war Italy considered coming to terms with nationalist forces in Tripolitania and with the Sanūsiyyah, which was strong in Cyrenaica. These negotiations foundered, however, and the arrival of a strong governor, Giuseppe Volpi, in Libya and a Fascist government in Italy (1922) inaugurated an Italian policy of thorough colonization. The coastal areas of Tripolitania were subdued by 1923, but in Cyrenaica Sanūsī resistance, led by ʿUmar al-Mukhtār, continued until his capture and execution in 1931.

Italian colonization

In the 1920s and ’30s the Italian government expended large sums on developing towns, roads, and agricultural colonies for Italian settlers. The most ambitious effort was the program of Italian immigration called “demographic colonization,” launched by the Fascist leader Benito Mussolini in 1935. As a result of these efforts, by the outbreak of World War II, some 150,000 Italians had settled in Libya and constituted roughly one-fifth of that country’s total population.

These colonizing efforts and the resulting economic development of Libya were largely destroyed during the North Africa campaigns of 1941–43. Cyrenaica changed hands three times, and by the end of 1942 all of the Italian settlers had left. Cyrenaica largely reverted to pastoralism. Economic and administrative development fostered by Italy survived in Tripolitania; however, Libya by 1945 was impoverished, underpopulated, and also divided into regions—Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan—of differing political, economic, and religious traditions.

Independence

The future of Libya gave rise to long discussions after the war. In view of the contribution to the fighting made by a volunteer Sanūsī force, the British foreign minister pledged in 1942 that the Sanūsīs would not again be subjected to Italian rule. During the discussions, which lasted four years, suggestions included an Italian trusteeship, a United Nations (UN) trusteeship, a Soviet mandate for Tripolitania, and various compromises. Finally, in November 1949, the UN General Assembly voted that Libya should become a united and independent kingdom no later than Jan. 1, 1952.

A constitution creating a federal state with a separate parliament for each province was drawn up, and the pro-British head of the Sanūsiyyah, Sīdī Muḥammad Idrīs al-Mahdī al-Sanūsī, was chosen king by a national assembly in 1950. On Dec. 24, 1951, King Idris I declared the country independent. Political parties were prohibited, and the king’s authority was sovereign. Though not themselves Sanūsīs, the Tripolitanians accepted the monarchy largely in order to profit from the British promise that the Sanūsīs would not again be subjected to Italian rule. King Idris, however, showed a marked preference for living in Cyrenaica, where he built a new capital on the site of the Sanūsī zāwiyah at Al-Bayḍāʾ. Though Libya joined the Arab League in 1953 and in 1956 refused British troops permission to land during the Suez Crisis, the government in general adopted a pro-Western position in international affairs.

The discovery of oil

With the discovery of significant oil reserves in 1959, Libya changed abruptly from being dependent on international aid and the rent from U.S. and British air bases to being an oil-rich monarchy. Major petroleum deposits in both Tripolitania and Cyrenaica ensured the country income on a vast scale. The discovery was followed by an enormous expansion in all government services, massive construction projects, and a corresponding rise in the economic standard and the cost of living.

Precipitated by the king’s failure to speak out against Israel during the June War (1967), a coup was carried out on Sept. 1, 1969, by a group of young army officers led by Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi, who deposed the king and proclaimed Libya a republic. The new regime, passionately Pan-Arab, broke the monarchy’s close ties to Britain and the United States and also began an assertive policy that led to higher oil prices along with 51 percent Libyan participation in oil company activities and, in some cases, outright nationalization.

The Qaddafi regime

Equally assertive in plans for Arab unity, Libya obtained at least the formal beginnings of unity with Egypt, Sudan, and Tunisia, but these and other such plans failed as differences arose between the governments concerned. Qaddafi’s Libya supported the Palestinian cause and intervened to support it, as well as other guerrilla and revolutionary organizations in Africa and the Middle East. Such moves alienated the Western countries and some Arab states. In July–August 1977 hostilities broke out between Libya and Egypt, and, as a result, many Egyptians working in Libya were expelled. Indeed, despite expressed concern for Arab unity, the regime’s relations with most Arab countries deteriorated. Qaddafi signed a treaty of union with Morocco’s King Hassan II in August 1984, but Hassan abrogated the treaty two years later.

The regime, under Qaddafi’s ideological guidance, continued to introduce innovations. On March 2, 1977, the General People’s Congress declared that Libya was to be known as the People’s Socialist Libyan Arab Jamāhīriyyah (the latter term is a neologism meaning “government through the masses”). By the early 1980s, however, a drop in the demand and price for oil on the world market was beginning to hamper Qaddafi’s efforts to play a strong regional role. Ambitious efforts to radically change Libya’s economy and society slowed, and there were signs of domestic discontent. Libyan opposition movements launched sporadic attacks against Qaddafi and his military supporters but met with arrest and execution.

Libya’s relationship with the United States, which had been an important trading partner, deteriorated in the early 1980s as the U.S. government increasingly protested Qaddafi’s support of Palestinian Arab militants. An escalating series of retaliatory trade restrictions and military skirmishes culminated in a U.S. bombing raid of Tripoli and Banghāzī in 1986, in which Qaddafi’s adopted daughter was among the casualties. U.S. claims that Libya was producing chemical warfare materials contributed to the tension between the two countries in the late 1980s and ’90s. Within the region, Libya sought throughout the 1970s and ’80s to control the mineral-rich Aozou strip along the disputed border with neighbouring Chad. These efforts produced intermittent warfare in Chad and confrontation with both France and the United States. In 1987 Libyan forces were bested by Chad’s more mobile troops, and diplomatic ties with that country were restored late the following year. Libya denied involvement in Chad’s December 1990 coup led by Idriss Déby (see Chad: Civil war).

In 1996 the United States and the UN implemented a series of economic sanctions against Libya for its purported involvement in destroying a civilian airliner over Lockerbie, Scot., in 1988. In the late 1990s, in an effort to placate the international community, Libya turned over the alleged perpetrators of the bombing to international authorities and accepted a ruling by the international court in The Hague stating that the contested Aozou territory along the border with Chad belonged to that country and not to Libya. The United Kingdom restored diplomatic relations with Libya at the end of the decade, and UN sanctions were lifted in 2003; later that year Libya announced that it would stop producing chemical weapons. The United States responded by dropping most of its sanctions, and the restoration of full diplomatic ties between the two countries was completed in 2006. In 2007 five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who had been sentenced to death in Libya after being tried on charges of having deliberately infected children there with HIV were extradited to Bulgaria and quickly pardoned by its president, defusing widespread outcry over the case and preventing the situation from posing an obstacle to Libya’s return to the international community.

In the years that followed the lifting of sanctions, one of Qaddafi’s sons, Sayf al-Islam al-Qaddafi, emerged as a proponent of reform and helped lead Libya toward adjustments in its domestic and foreign policy. Measures including efforts to attract Western business and plans to foster tourism promised to gradually draw Libya more substantially into the global community.

Revolt in 2011

In February 2011, in the midst of a wave of popular demonstrations in the Middle East and North Africa, antigovernment rallies were held in Banghāzī by protesters angered by the arrest of a human rights lawyer, Fethi Tarbel. The protesters called for Qaddafi to step down and for the release of political prisoners. Libyan security forces used water cannons and live fire against the crowds, resulting in a number of injuries. In response to the demonstrations, a pro-government rally was broadcast on state television.

As the protests intensified, with demonstrators taking control of Banghāzī and unrest spreading to Tripoli, the Libyan government began using lethal force against demonstrators. Security forces and squads of mercenaries fired live ammunition into crowds of demonstrators. Demonstrators also were attacked with tanks and artillery and from the air with warplanes and helicopter gunships. The regime restricted communications, blocking the Internet and interrupting telephone service throughout the country. On February 21 one of Qaddafi’s sons, Sayf al-Islam, gave a defiant address on state television, blaming outside agitators for the unrest and saying that further demonstrations could lead to civil war in the country. He vowed that the regime would fight “to the last bullet.”

The government’s sudden escalation of violence against protesters and other civilians drew international condemnation from foreign leaders and human rights organizations. It also seemed to damage the coherence of the regime, causing a number of high-level officials, including the minister of justice and a number of senior Libyan diplomats, to resign in protest or issue statements condemning the regime. A number of the Libyan embassies around the world began to fly Libya’s pre-Qaddafi flag, signaling support for the uprising. Support for Qaddafi also seemed to waver in some segments of the military; as the Libyan air force carried out attacks against demonstrators, two Libyan fighter pilots flew their jets to Malta, choosing to defect rather than obey orders to bomb Banghāzī.

On February 22 Qaddafi delivered an angry, rambling speech on state television, condemning the protesters as traitors and calling on his supporters to fight them. He resisted calls to step down and vowed to remain in Libya. Although he denied having previously used force against protesters, he repeatedly vowed to use violence to remain in power.

Clashes continued, and Qaddafi’s hold on power weakened as Libyan military units increasingly sided with the opposition against the regime. As demonstrators acquired weapons from government arms depots and joined forces with defected military units, the anti-Qaddafi movement began to take the form of an armed rebellion. The newly armed rebel forces were able to expel most pro-Qaddafi troops from the eastern portion of Libya, including the city of Banghāzī, and many western cities by February 23. The Libyan-Egyptian border was opened, allowing foreign journalists into the country for the first time since the conflict began. Pro-Qaddafi paramilitary units continued to hold the city of Tripoli, where Qaddafi and members of his family and inner circle remained.

As Qaddafi massed his forces in the Tripoli area to hold off the rebels there, his public statements seemed to indicate that he was becoming increasingly isolated and desperate. Speaking by telephone on Libyan state television on February 24, Qaddafi once again lashed out at protesters, saying that the young people at the core of the protest movement were acting under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs and that the demonstrations were being controlled by al-Qaeda.

Foreign leaders continued to condemn the violence. However, international efforts to intervene or pressure the regime to end the bloodshed were complicated by the presence of many foreign nationals in Libya still waiting to be evacuated.

The regime continued its efforts to hold the capital, launching attacks around Tripoli, some of which were repelled by rebel forces. On February 25 pro-Qaddafi gunmen in Tripoli attacked unarmed protesters and others as they emerged from mosques after Friday prayers.

International pressure for Qaddafi to step down increased as violence continued and foreign nationals were evacuated. The UN Security Council unanimously approved a measure that included sanctions against the Qaddafi regime, imposing a travel ban and an arms embargo and freezing the Qaddafi family’s assets. The measure also referred the case to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The United States, the European Union, and a number of other countries also imposed sanctions. On February 28 the U.S. announced that it had frozen at least $30 billion in Libyan assets.

Amid continuing skirmishes as rebel forces strengthened their positions outside Tripoli, Qaddafi invited a number of Western journalists to the city in an attempt to demonstrate that the situation remained under control in the capital. In interviews he continued to blame al-Qaeda and hallucinogenic drugs for the uprising. He claimed that Western leaders who had called for him to step down did so out of a desire to colonize Libya, and he insisted that he was still well loved by Libyans.

A rebel leadership council, formed by the merger of local rebel groups, emerged in Banghāzī in early March. The council, known as the Interim Transitional National Council, declared that its aims would be to act as the rebellion’s military leadership and as the representative of the Libyan opposition, provide services in rebel-held areas, and guide the country’s transition to democratic government.

Conditions in Libya worsened as the armed struggle continued, and thousands of people, mostly migrant workers from Egypt and Tunisia, fled toward the borders. Governments and humanitarian organizations began to organize efforts to address worsening shortages of food, fuel, and medical supplies throughout the country.

After the rebels succeeded in taking control of eastern Libya and a number of cities in the west, the conflict appeared to enter a stalemate. The Qaddafi regime still controlled enough soldiers and weapons to hold Tripoli and to stage fresh assaults, which rebel fighters, although poorly equipped, were largely able to repel. Most fighting took place in the towns around Tripoli and in the central coastal region, where rebels and Qaddafi loyalists battled for control of the oil-export terminals on the Gulf of Sidra. On March 2 the regime launched air strikes and a ground assault on the towns of Marsa el-Brega and Ajdābiyā in an attempt to take back the nearby oil refineries and export facilities. After briefly advancing into Marsa el-Brega, loyalist forces were pushed back by a surge of rebel fighters arriving from the east.

International pressure on the Qaddafi regime continued to build. On March 3 the chief prosecutor of the ICC announced that the court would investigate Qaddafi and members of his inner circle for alleged crimes against humanity.

As the fighting continued, forces loyal to Qaddafi seemed to gain momentum, launching successful assaults to retake control in strategic areas around Tripoli and on the coast of the Gulf of Sidra. Attacking with fighter jets, tanks, and artillery, by March 10 they had driven rebel forces from Al-Zāwiyah, west of Tripoli, and from the oil-export centre of Ras Lanuf. Those gains highlighted the Qaddafi loyalists’ advantages in weaponry, training, and organization.

As Qaddafi appeared to gain the upper hand, the international community continued to debate possible diplomatic and military responses to the rapidly developing conflict. Countries worked to establish contact with the Interim Transitional National Council, although only France granted it official recognition, announcing on March 10 that it would treat the council as Libya’s legitimate government. International condemnation of the Qaddafi regime continued to build, and at an emergency summit on March 11 the European Union unanimously called for Qaddafi to step down. However, the international community remained divided over the possibility of military intervention—most likely in the form of a no-fly zone over Libya, a measure long requested by the rebels to prevent Qaddafi loyalists from launching air attacks. Some countries, including France and the United Kingdom, signaled their support for such an operation, while others, including the United States and Germany, expressed their reservations, emphasizing the need for broad international consensus and warning against possible unforeseen consequences of military intervention. The African Union (AU) rejected any military intervention in Libya, asserting that the crisis should be resolved through negotiations, whereas the Arab League passed a resolution on March 13 calling on the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.

On March 15 Qaddafi loyalists launched a heavy assault on the eastern city of Ajdābiyā, the last large rebel-held city on the route to Banghāzī. As Qaddafi loyalists advanced on the remaining rebel positions in Banghāzī and Tobruk in the east and Miṣrātah in the west, the UN Security Council voted on March 17 to authorize military action, including a no-fly zone to protect Libyan civilians. The Qaddafi regime responded by declaring an immediate cease-fire, although there were reports that pro-Qaddafi forces continued to launch attacks after the announcement and that heavy fighting continued in Banghāzī.

Beginning March 19, a coalition of U.S. and European forces with warplanes and cruise missiles attacked targets in Libya in an effort to disable Libya’s air force and air defense systems so that the U.N.-authorized no-fly zone could be imposed. Coalition missiles struck buildings in a compound used by Qaddafi as a command centre, and in eastern Libya warplanes attacked a pro-Qaddafi armoured column positioned outside Banghāzī. Emboldened by the air strikes, rebel forces once again launched an offensive to challenge pro-Qaddafi forces’ hold on the oil centres on the coast. Qaddafi denounced the coalition attacks as an act of aggression against Libya and vowed to continue fighting international forces and the rebels.

Coalition spokesmen announced on March 23 that the Libyan air force had been completely disabled by coalition air strikes. However, heavy fighting continued on the ground. Pro-Qaddafi units massed around the rebel-held city of Miṣrātah and the contested city of Ajdābiyā, shelling both heavily and causing significant civilian casualties. Attacks by coalition warplanes soon weakened pro-Qaddafi ground forces in eastern Libya, allowing rebels to quickly advance and retake Ajdābiyā, Marsa el-Brega, Ras Lanuf, and Bin Jawwad.

On March 27 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officially took command of military operations previously directed by the United States, France, and the United Kingdom in Libya. The handover came after several days of debate among NATO countries over the limits of international military intervention; several countries argued that the coalition’s aggressive targeting of pro-Qaddafi ground forces had exceeded the mandate set by the UN Security Council to protect civilians.

On March 30 Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa defected, fleeing to the United Kingdom. The defection of Koussa, a former head of Libyan intelligence and longtime member of Qaddafi’s inner circle, was interpreted as a sign that support for Qaddafi among senior Libyan officials had begun to wane.

As the fighting progressed, it began to appear that, even with NATO attacks on pro-Qaddafi forces, the Libyan rebels—a poorly armed, disorganized force with little military training—would be unable to oust Qaddafi or achieve decisive successes against Qaddafi’s professional troops. Diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis intensified, with an AU delegation traveling to Tripoli on April 10 to present a cease-fire plan to Qaddafi. AU representatives announced that Qaddafi had accepted the plan, although pro-Qaddafi forces continued to launch attacks on April 11. The plan was rejected by the rebel leaders on the grounds that it did not provide for Qaddafi’s departure from Libya.

As the stalemate continued, the United Kingdom announced on April 19 that it would send a team of military liaison officers to Libya to advise rebel leaders on military strategy, organization, and logistics. The next day France and Italy announced that they would also send advisers. All three countries specified that their officers would not participate in fighting. The Libyan foreign minister condemned the decision to send military advisers, saying that such aid to the rebels would only prolong the conflict.

On April 30 a NATO air strike on a house in Qaddafi’s compound in Tripoli killed Qaddafi’s youngest son, Sayf al-Arab, along with three of Qaddafi’s grandchildren. Qaddafi, who was present at the site of the strike, avoided injury. More strikes in early May targeted government buildings associated with Qaddafi and Libya’s senior military leadership, but NATO representatives denied claims that NATO had adopted a strategy of trying to kill Qaddafi and other high-ranking Libyan officials.